


that's the way love goes

by kadaransmuggler



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 03:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10845741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadaransmuggler/pseuds/kadaransmuggler
Summary: She has always been free to make her own choices, as good or bad as they may be.Some of them are easier to make than others.





	that's the way love goes

            Nora’s mother taught her early that her life is, and always will be, her own. She was free to make her own choices, as bad or as good as they may be. This was all within reason, of course, but Nora doesn’t have to wonder what her mother would think of her now. If she has chosen to take up arms and fight in this strange new world, well, the choice was hers to make, even if it means her life might end with the shot of a gun or the flash of a knife.

            She had never handled a gun before she woke up in the Vault, air clawing itself back into her lungs after God knows how long trapped in cryogenic stasis. She’d fallen, at first, her hands splayed out on the concrete floor, her chipped nail polish in stark contrast with the still-immaculate floor. It hadn’t seemed real, at first, and her fingers had still been cold when she’d found the pistol left forgotten on a desk. She’d fumbled for a full minute trying to make sure it was loaded, and by then this new world was starting to feel a little more real. Ultimately, picking up the loaded gun had been her choice, and now the people of the Wasteland look at her like she was born with one in her hand. Some days, she feels like she was. It’s easy, in the end, to forget what the Before was like when she’s faced with the dangers of the Wasteland every day. In the end, she isn’t sure she’d give it up for anything, even after all it took from her.

* * *

            Sometimes she lays awake at night on the bed she built in Sanctuary and she thinks of the Before. It isn’t an uncommon occurrence, even though she puts in enough work during the day to exhaust her. She should be sleeping by the time her head hits the pillow, but there’s a hole in the roof over her bed, and she can see the stars scattered across the night sky and sometimes she gets lost in her memories.

            She’s reminded of another night, some two hundred odd years ago. Her father had always been insistent that she could do things for herself, and it had helped her make plenty of choices in her life. He taught her most of what she knew- or, at least, most of what helped her survive in the Wasteland. It was on warm summer night underneath the starry skies that he really taught her how to tinker with things. The garage door is open and they’re sitting underneath it with light spilling out across the lawn. He’d grabbed an old, worn out toaster that had been sitting around in their garage for the last few months, and he taught her what he could. Nora remembers that night in snapshots. Light glinting off the shiny chrome shell of the toaster, her fingers wrapped around a screwdriver, her father with his glasses slipping off of his nose and his head bent over as he pointed at the internal circuitry. She supposes she has him to thank for her continued survival- it had been thanks to the skills he taught her that she can make enough of her own things to survive. If it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t have known where to start when it came to making her house something she could live in, and she wouldn’t have been able to make the armor that kept most of the bullets from hitting her. Sometimes she wonders how it all began with a broken old toaster.

* * *

            She’d developed a fascination with tinkering, after that. She liked to take things apart and put them back together- it helped her relax and it kept her hands busy and her mind occupied when other things threatened to overwhelm her. She’d thought about becoming a mechanic, but she realized there wasn’t much of a future in that. She’d gone to law school, instead. She found Nate at the same school and they started dating three months after they met. He dropped out to join the army, and Nora kept taking her classes. She got her degree, they got married, and Nate got deployed. Her mother warned her about loving a soldier. Nora’s grandfather had been a soldier, she learns, and her grandmother had stayed up late nights pacing through the house and desperate for news. It wasn’t good when it came, but when Nora made the choice, she chose Nate.

            She kept tinkering, though. Their first house had a workshop just for her, and there times when she’d spend hours bent over one gadget or another. She got good, and she almost considered quitting her job at the law firm. She didn’t, though. When she got pregnant with her first child, a boy she wanted to name Shaun, she knew they’d need the financial stability. She kept dreaming, though. She built the crib by hand, when Nate would stop hovering and let her work. It was only a few weeks after she got it built that she went into labor, and it was only a few months after Shaun was born that the bombs fell. The old crib is still intact, though. The paint has all but chipped off, and it was shoved into a corner after she found her son in the Institute, but she can’t bring herself to scrap it.

* * *

            She found her way to Goodneighbor, eventually. She’d been trying to find Diamond City as she picked her way through the ruined buildings of Boston and avoid the mutants and the raiders and anything else that might have wanted to kill her. She was still scared, then. She hadn’t been out of the Vault for long, and all she’d had was ill-fitting armor strapped to her chest and the pistol she’d picked up. She hadn’t wanted to take the time to make a full set of armor. If she had it her way, she’d get to Diamond City and find her baby. She didn’t have a plan for after, all she knew is that her son needed her. She wasn’t too disappointed when she found Goodneighbor instead, though- a town was a town and she was just relieved to find somewhere that was almost safe, until a man walked up to her. He looked like a bully- she’d seen plenty of them back in the law firm that walked around like the world owed them something. She sighs, her hand drifting towards her pistol. Better safe than sorry, she supposed.

            “Hold up there,” he tells her, and she stops with her arms crossed over her chest. He puffs on his cigarette before he continues, “First time in Goodneighbor? You can’t go walking around without a little insurance.” She’d have laughed, if she weren’t so tired.

            “Unless it’s ‘keep-dumb-assholes-away-from me insurance, I’m not interested, _pal_ ,” she tells him, pushing the sunglasses she’d found up on her head. He doesn’t get the hint, though, and Nora’s not stupid enough to go pushing past him in case the rest of the town came to his defense. Besides, it’s good to keep your back up against the wall when you’re facing so many unknowns.

            “Now don’t be like that, doll. I think you’re going to like what I have on offer,” he tells her, leaning forward. She can see he’s trying to take up as much space as possible- a classic intimidation tactic. She’s been through too damn much in the last few days to be cowed, though, so she straights her back and lets her hand touch the handle of her gun. “You hand over everything you got in them pockets, or _accidents_ are gonna start happenin’ to ya. Big, bloody, _accidents_ ,” he drawls, and Nora’s about three seconds away from telling him where he can stick that cigarette of his when someone else steps around the corner, drawing her attention away. Lucky for her, the asshole trying to bully her gets distracted too, enough that he steps back and turns to look at the approaching figure. If Nora were a different woman, she’d put a bullet in his back, but she’s not.

            “Whoa, whoa. Time out. Someone steps through the gate the first time, they’re a guest. You lay off of that extortion crap,” the newcomer says. He’s a ghoul, she knows, but Nora can’t help her staring. She’s only seen ferals before, and there’s a lot of difference. She’s also staring at the outfit- it’s old, a long red frock coat with a formal blue jacket underneath and more ruffles than there should be. She thinks she might have seen something like it in a museum before the bombs dropped, but she ain’t about to criticize his sense of dress. He’s dangerous, she can tell, but so is she. Even so, she knows that power and danger should be respected, especially out here in the Wasteland where there aren’t any courts to settle disputes. The man moves like a hunter, right up to the moment when he sinks his knife between the bully’s ribs.

            Nora thought she was a composed woman, but she can’t stop herself from taking a micro-step backwards, her hand drifting up to cover her mouth as the ghoul turns and looks at her. “Sorry about that. Don’t let him taint your view of our little community. My name’s Hancock, and I’m the mayor around here,” he says, sounding perfectly polite and civil for someone who’d just killed a man.

            “I need a drink,” Nora murmurs dazedly in response, and Hancock laughs, slapping her on the shoulder. She’s still a little shell-shocked, and she thinks that everything that happened the last few days might be catching up to her. It wasn’t that long ago that she and Nate were getting ready to go to the Veteran’s Hall.

            “That’s the spirit! You can head over to the Third Rail…or you could join me in my office,” he offers, and maybe it’s the way he’s looking at her or maybe it’s the hell she just went through.

            “Lead the way, mayor,” Nora says, her voice soft and barely there, although by now she’s composed herself a little more. She feels a little less like her feet have been yanked out from underneath her, and a little more like this may not be impossible, after all.

* * *

            The mayor’s office is nicer than she expected, if she lets herself be honest. Hancock sits down on the couch, propping his feet up on the table and gesturing to the other end of the couch. She sits down gingerly, but she accepts the bottle of wine that Hancock passes her.

            “So, I got a job for you, if you’re interested,” Hancock says, and he lights something that she knows isn’t a cigarette. It smells nice, though, and Nora thinks it might have a whole lot to do with how relaxed she suddenly feels.

            “I don’t know. I’m a mission of my own right now- an important one,” Nora answers, and she drinks straight from the bottle.

            “What kind of mission?” Hancock asks, his eyes heavy-lidded through the smoke. Nora leans back against the couch, one leg crossed over the other.

            “I’m a Vault Dweller. From Vault 111. The thing is, the bastards froze us without telling us. Someone broke in, kidnapped my son and shot my husband. The only kind of lead I got is a detective from Diamond City. I got lost on the way and ended up here. Not that I’m complaining for the moment; it’s nice to have four walls that mutants can’t shoot through,” she tells him, and for a moment her heart clenches as she thinks of Nate and all the things she’s lost.

            “Cryogenically frozen? You mean to tell me you were around before the war?” Hancock asks, his eyes wide.

            “Yeah. I was a lawyer. Had a nice house in the suburbs and everything. Now the whole damned place is falling apart,” she replies. She can’t tell if she’s angry or grieving, and she can’t tell if there’s a difference, either.

            “That’s rough. Can’t be easy, waking up to this mess,” he says. She thinks the smoke might be getting to her, giving her a contact buzz, because she feels a heavy and light all at once.

            “It isn’t. You know, I’d never even handled a gun before I woke up in the Vault. Hell of a thing to wake up to,” she agrees, leaning back and taking a swig from the bottle of wine. It’s a lot emptier than it probably should be, but if Nora’s honest, she probably should have gotten drunk days ago.

            “Damn. You sure you should be out there alone?” he asks, his eyes heavy-lidding. Nora tilts her head back against the couch and closes her eyes.

            “No. I’m not sure of anything. But I’ve not got many other options,” she replies, her voice more like a sigh.

            “I’d come with you myself, but there’s some business I have to take care of here in Goodneighbor. There’s a merc for hire in the Third Rail, a man by the name of MacCready. If you don’t have the caps you need to hire him, I can lend you the rest. He can lead you to Diamond City, anyway. A woman like you shouldn’t be roaming the Wastes alone,” he says. Something in Nora almost bristles at that- she wants to tell him that she’s perfectly capable of handling herself- but she knows that she needs the help. The world is different now, and there’s not much use for a lawyer when justice is had at gunpoint on your own terms.

            “Thank you, Mayor. Is this MacCready trustworthy?” she asks, and she wonders if there’s a difference in what she considers trustworthy and in what Hancock considers trustworthy.

            “Yeah, he’s a good guy, for the most part. He’ll help you do what you need to do,” the mayor tells her. Nora stretches, then, and the wine that she’s drunk feels warm in the pit of her stomach.

            “Thank you again, Mayor. Mind if I trouble you for a place to sleep?” she asks, and then she’s yawning, her eyes drooping shut no matter how much she wills them to stay open. Her limbs feel heavy, and even though she just slept for two hundred years she feels like she could sleep for two hundred more. Hancock chuckles, and she’s dimly aware of the way he stands up. He’s taller than she realized before, she thinks, her head tilted back as she looks up at him from half-closed eyes.

            “’Course you can,” he says, with an easy smile as he slides one arm behind her back and the other behind her knees. She makes a soft noise in the back of her throat, but she curls against him as he carries her across the room to a bed tucked in the corner. He pulls the blanket over her as she settles into the mattress, turning onto her side. “Get some sleep, Nora. I’ll go talk to MacCready. He’ll be ready to go by morning,” the mayor tells her. She’s awake long enough to see him walk out of the door, the light in the hallway bright against his silhouette, and then she sleeps.

* * *

            MacCready is nice enough, Nora decides. He’s a little brash, a little rude, but she can’t tell if that’s part of his personality or part of how the world has changed in the last two hundred years. He leads her to Diamond City quickly and quietly, and even though her heart aches at the memories swirling around in her head, her first introduction to the great green jewel of the Commonwealth is an argument. She finds herself taking a liking to the woman already; her plan to get them inside the city was brilliant enough to work, at any rate, and Nora had always been fond of journalists. She’s less fond of the mayor. She can smell a crooked politician from a mile away, and McDonough seems to be as crooked as they come. She doesn’t mention that, though. Instead, she smiles and puts her hand in the crook of his arm until he tells her that Nick Valentine is the man she needs.

            She marches through the city like she owns the place, MacCready trailing along after her. She knows if she takes a moment to stop and breathe, to look around at what the world has become, she will end up in tears. She has too many things to do for that to happen, so she keeps her gaze fixed straight ahead and follows the directions she sweet-talked out of McDonough until she reaches a door in an alley that’s only lit by the glow of a neon light. She takes a moment, her hand pressed against the door, to steel herself. After a deep breath and a shared glance with MacCready, she nods to herself and pushes the door open.

* * *

            Two days later, she’s back in the detective agency. She’s got a scrape on her forehead and a gash on her cheek, and her knees still ache from trying to crawl through the Vault quietly, but Nick Valentine is sitting across from her with sympathy in his glowing yellow eyes and Nora feels like it might be possible after all. She tells the detective everything she can remember, and MacCready is standing with a hand on her shoulder. She glances at him gratefully; she’d never imagined a cutthroat mercenary would be comforting her about her kidnapped son, but then again she’d never imagined the world would end in a flash of fire either.

            “Was the name Kellogg ever used?” Nick asks her. Her brow furrows as she tries to think, to remember, the tip of her tongue poking through her teeth.

            “I don’t think so. I can’t remember hearing any names. I was confused, though, just coming out of stasis. Who’s Kellogg? Is he with the Institute?” she asks, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She doesn’t remember ever feeling so tired.

            “Not that I know of. He’s a mercenary- got a house here in Diamond City, in fact,” Nick tells her. She sits back, a predatory grin on her face.

            “I think we should go pay him a visit, then,” Nora says, her tone light despite the way she’s tensed up.

            “I don’t think it’ll be that easy. He hasn’t been seen in Diamond City for weeks,” Nick says. She slips a bobby pin out of her hair and holds it up with a grin, shaking it a little.

            “I do happen to have a few investigative tricks up my sleeve, Valentine,” she says, a faintly amused grin on her face. It’s already getting easier for her to pretend like the Wasteland is where she belongs. _Fake it until you make it_ , she thinks, as she follows Nick into the city. It’s hard not to see ghosts in every corner, but it’s getting easier to ignore them. She wonders how long it’ll be before she stops seeing them.

* * *

            Nora never considered herself prone to violence. Standing in front of Kellogg, however, in a ruined military fort, made violence look pretty good. Her face was still scratched up from fighting her way out of Vault with Nick, and now she’s got a busted lip, a bleeding nose, and a bloody bandage tied around her upper left arm where a bullet nicked her. She glances at MacCready out of the corner of her eyes, a near-feral grin on her face.

            “I think we’ve been talking long enough. We both know how this is going to end, Vaultie. So…you ready?” Kellogg asks, his sandpaper voice dragging across her nerves. Her hand twitches towards her pistol as every muscle in her body tenses up, but she doesn’t make her move, not yet. She can feel MacCready tensing beside her, shifting his grip on his rifle.

            “You know, Kellogg, in a hundred years, when I finally die, I only hope I go to hell so I can kill you all over again,” Nora says, her voice low and full of as much venom as she can muster. She dives to one side, then, ducking behind cover as the synths surrounding Kellogg burst into action. MacCready dives to the other side, bringing his gun up. Adrenaline pumps through her system, but her hand doesn’t shake as she blindly fires her pistol around the side of the desk she’s cowering behind. She waits for a break in the firing before she peeks around the desk. She takes out one synth and MacCready gets the other, but she can’t see Kellogg anywhere.

            “Looking for me, sweetheart?” the sandpaper voice asks, and Nora turns to see a telltale distortion in the air. She kicks, and Kellogg grunts as her foot connects with his thigh. The stealth boy gives out just as Kellogg raises his pistol. Nora empties her clip into his face before his finger can reach the trigger. She winces as the blood splatters across her face, her stomach turning.

            The room around them is still, suddenly. “Nora?” MacCready asks. She shakes her head, turning around and gripping the corner of the desk she’d just been hiding behind as her stomach voids its contents. MacCready, to his credit, pats her back awkwardly.

            She stands up, dragging her hand across the back of her mouth. “We need to look for clues. There’s got to be something that’ll tell us how to get into the Institute. I’m not giving up on my son,” she says, and she finally lets her hands shake as she kneels down and starts patting Kellogg’s pockets. She feels her stomach turning again, but it’s empty, so she doesn’t stop. MacCready kneels down next to the remains of Kellogg’s head, his brow furrowing as he holds up a metal piece attached to an intact piece of the brain.

            “Think this is important?” he asks. Nora wrinkles her nose as she pulls out a piece of paper, a terminal password scrawled across it.

            “Maybe. Wrap it up in something and take it just in case,” she mutters, crouching down in front of the terminal. Fifteen minutes, they’re on the road back to Diamond City. Nora’s limping, her arm is stinging, and she’s pretty sure she looks like she just came off of the set of a horror movie with all the blood on her face, but she feels like she has a start.

* * *

            She can’t stop herself from breathing a sigh of relief as she passes through the gate into Goodneighbor. MacCready heaves a sigh of relief. “It’s good to be back,” he mumbles to himself. Nora nods distractedly as she hurries through the town. She’d stopped by the medical clinic in Diamond City, but she was still covered in drying blood and the Vault suit she wore was filthy. She rounds the corner and almost walks directly into Hancock, stopping just short of letting her face meet his chest.

            “Shit, doll, you look like you’ve been through the wringer,” Hancock says. She looks up at him with a small, tired smile.

            “Well, I’d say you’re a sight for sore eyes, Mayor. I need to head to the Memory Den- I’ve got a lead on my son- but I think the first order of business is cleaning myself up. Where can I go for that?” she asks.

            “I’m sure they could accommodate you over at the Hotel Rexford, but if you don’t want to wait, I could arrange something up in my quarters,” he offers. MacCready coughs behind her, but she ignores him.

            “Why, thank you, Hancock. I’d appreciate that,” she says. He links his arm through hers as she turns around and leads the way.

            “So, tell me about this lead of yours,” he asks, climbing up the steps of the Old State House.

            “Well, a merc named Kellogg took my son from the Vault. Bastard shot my husband, too, but I can’t do nothing about Nate except for remembering him. Anyway, turns out he was working for the Institute. We managed to save a piece of his brain- Valentine said Amari might be able to help,” Nora explained.

            “The Memory Den, huh? Mind if I head over there with you, once you’re cleaned up?” he asks, unlinking their arms as he steps into a small alcove. There’s a curtain hanging over the entrance, and nothing but a grimy old bathtub pressed up against the wall inside.

            “Yeah, feel free. I have a feeling I’ll need all the help I can get,” she says, shrugging the pack she’s carrying off of her shoulders. She’s not got much in there, just a spare gun, some spare ammo, a knife, and a spare outfit. He nods, stepping back and letting the curtain fall back into place. There’s a rudimentary system of running water that’s filling the tub- it’s only lukewarm, and it’ll take ten minutes or longer to fill the tub up, but Nora assumes it’s better than anything else she’d be able to find in Goodneighbor.

            “You can count on my help, doll. You take your time getting cleaned up- I’ll meet you at the Memory Den,” he says, patting her on the shoulder almost awkwardly. She smiles tiredly, leaning back against the wall and crossing her arms.

            “Thanks, Hancock,” she murmurs, as he turns and walks away.

* * *

            Nora hadn’t hesitated long whenever Amari had told her she was going to have to go through Kellogg’s memories, but she might have if she’d known. She wakes with a gasp, falling out of the chair. Her fingers splay on the worn tile of the floor, and she thinks this is all too familiar as a sob tears its way out of her throat. She’s breathing quick and shallow, and she knows she’s only a few seconds away from hyperventilating as a hand wraps around her upper arm.

            “Whoa, whoa, Nora, calm down,” Hancock says, and then she’s curling towards him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder as she squeezes her eyes shut.

            “If I had known, I wouldn’t have had her go through that,” Amari says, softly.

            “I need a minute,” Nora gasps, her hand fisting in the fabric of Hancock’s jacket. He’s making soft, soothing sounds in the back of his throat while Nora tries anything to bring herself back to the moment of now instead of the moment of then.

            “I’ve got her,” she hears Hancock says, and she nods against his shoulder.

            “I’m fine, really,” she says, but she takes a few more deep and shuddering breaths with her face buried in the comfort of Hancock’s shoulder.

            “We know, doll. What you just saw would mess anyone up,” he murmurs, his hand rubbing circles on her back.

            She heaves a sigh and leans back, rubbing at her face. “At least we have a lead,” she mutters.

            “What do you mean? I didn’t see anything that could help us there,” Amari says. Nora looks up, a faint grin on her face.

            “That courser sent him to hunt down that scientist. Virgil. If I can find him in the Glowing Sea, then I can find my son,” she says. Hancock looks down at her, and despite the grin on his face, there’s worry in his eyes, too.

            “You’re perceptive. But the Glowing Sea…Nora, you’re gonna need something if you don’t want to end up looking like me,” Hancock says. Nora shrugs, standing.

            “I found an old set of power armor back in Concord. I took it back to Sanctuary. I could spend some time with it and fix it up. I bet it would protect me from the radiation long enough to get in and get out. I don’t know who I’d take with me, though. MacCready would need another set of power armor. So would Piper,” she says, trailing off as she sticks the tip of her tongue between her teeth.

            “I’ll go with you, doll. Radiation won’t hurt me anymore than it has already, and I’m not a bad shot,” Hancock says. Nora looks up at him gratefully.

            “Thank you, Mayor, I appreciate it,” she says. He keeps his hand on her arm, a steadying presence that keeps her grounded. She expects him to let go of her any second, but his grip stays solid even after she’s not swaying on her feet.

* * *

            The Glowing Sea is, perhaps, one of the most beautiful things that Nora has ever seen. She knows how destructive it is- her suit is injecting Rad-X and Rad-Away every thirty minutes, but the green glow is breathtaking. She stops for a moment, her thighs burning from the injections, and takes a deep breath.

            “It’s beautiful. It’s deadly, but it’s beautiful,” she says, sharing a look with Hancock. He looks up at her with a grin, running his hand along the barrel of his shotgun.

            “Almost like you, doll,” he says, and she looks down at the ground, her face turning red. He laughs, and even though the sound is so at odds with their surrounding, she feels warm in the pit of her stomach.

            “Let’s just go find Virgil,” she says, but from the look on his face she thinks he knows how hard she’s blushing.

* * *

            The Courser was easier to kill than she expected. In the end, she stands over the body, panting. She’s a little roughed up, but Hancock is standing next to her with a fierce grin on his face. “We did it,” he says, “we took down a Courser.” He sounds incredulous as she wipes the back of her hand across her forehead. She’s covered in sweat and blood, and she wonders if there will ever come a time when she’s not busted up anymore.

            “Hell yeah we did. Now let’s go get those plans. These bastards aren’t keeping my kid forever,” she says. Hancock nods his approval.

            “That’s the spirit, doll.”

* * *

            Nora sets to work the second she’s out of the Glowing Sea with the plans she got from Virgil. “The best bet will be the Minutemen. I don’t trust the Brotherhood or the Railroad, and Sturges can do some damn fine work with his hands,” she says, mostly to herself.

            “The Railroad ain’t so bad, but the Minutemen will have the resources, especially with all the settlements you’ve been having Garvey secure,” Hancock agrees. Nora rubs her hand over her face and looks into the fire.

            “This is turning out to be a hell of a lot more than I bargained for,” she sighs. Hancock scoots closer and wraps one arm around her. She finds herself leaning into him as she puts her chin on her knees.

            “I imagine so. You went into that Vault expecting to live out the rest of your life, and instead you get to wake up to this shitshow,” Hancock says. Nora turns her head to the side and looks at him, her hair falling around her face.

            “Well, it ain’t been all bad. I can’t complain about meeting you, anyway,” she says. He rolls his eyes, but he reaches up and brushes her hair out of her face.

            “You don’t want to do this, Nora,” he says, and she feels her heart beating a little faster.

            “Don’t want to do what?” she asks, as innocently as she can manage.

            “This thing between us. I’d hate for you to have to wake up to my ugly mug every morning,” he says, but the corners of his mouth are turned down in an almost-frown.

            “Is that the only problem, Hancock?” she asks, sitting back up. He hasn’t taken his arm from around her waist, though, so she knows this isn’t rejection, not yet.

            “You’re two hundred years in the future, Nora. You deserve better than what I can give you,” he says, and his voice is soft and sad and she shakes her head.

            “I deserved better than what Vault-Tec did to me. I deserved better than to have my husband killed and my son stolen while I was locked in the cryo-pod. But it’s what I got, and I have to say, Hancock, that I’d be damned honored for this _thing_ between us to go anywhere at all,” Nora says, and even though there’s enough venom in her voice to sting, he’s grinning.

            “You do have a point there. I ain’t got no other objections right now, even though you do deserve better,” he says. She rolls her eyes and leans up against him again.

            “You act like you’re terrible, Hancock. You’ve done a hell of a lot for me, though,” she says. One of his hands comes up, stroking her hair, and Nora almost melts.

            “I ain’t the best man in the world, doll. Not like your husband likely was,” he tells her, almost apologetically.

            “I loved Nate, but he had his faults too. And he’d want me to be as happy as I could, John,” she says, her voice so soft the crackle of the fire almost masks it.

            “I’ll do my best to keep you that way,” he whispers. Nora smiles as she reaches over, taking his hand in hers and linking their fingers together. Waking up in the Vault had felt like an ending, but now it was starting to feel almost like a beginning.

* * *

            Nora stands in the Institute, her grip on her gun slack as she stares at the man who had been her son. “Shaun?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper. Her heart is pounding in her ears as he nods an affirmation. She recoils, taking a step back. She hasn’t been in the Commonwealth long, but she knows what the Institute is doing and what the Institute has done, and she can’t ever believe that any child of hers would have grown up to do things as terrible as that.

            “It’s me,” he tells her, a faint smile on his face. She shakes her head stubbornly.

            “I can’t believe it. My boy is the head of the Institute. How could you?” she asks, her voice breaking. He tilts his head, his brows furrowing.

            “I don’t understand what you mean, Mother. The Institute has made many great advances since the end of the Great War. You have full access, if you wish to tour our facilities and see some of them,” he says.

            “And what have those advances cost the people of the Commonwealth? Shaun, I became a lawyer before the Great War to protect innocent people from things that _you’ve_ done!” she says, and she knows her voice is louder than it should be, she knows she’s almost yelling, but she can’t get over the betrayal worming it’s way through her heart.

            “The savages in the Commonwealth are nothing compared to the things we’re learning here, Mother. I would have hoped that you could see that,” he says, disappointment sharp in his voice. Nora thinks of Nate, who’d fought for freedom, and of Hancock who’d done the same thing. She thinks of a country that ended the day that the bombs fell, and she thinks of all the things she’s worked towards in her life. It is there, standing in the sterile white walls of the Institute, that Nora makes a choice.

            “I can’t let you do this, Shaun,” she says, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

            “That is unfortunate. I’ll have you sent back to Sanctuary, Mother,” Shaun says, and there’s only a look of removed disappointment in his eyes before he turns to go, leaving her staring after him.

* * *

            Hancock is the first person she seeks out. “Where’s your boy?” he asks, alarmed, as she stalks through the door.

            “He’s the head of the goddamned Institute,” she bites out. Hancock winces in sympathy as he opens his arms. She buries her face in his chest and then she’s crying, mourning everything she’s lost. Codsworth flits about fretfully behind them as Hancock pulls her onto the couch, bundling her up in his lap. She’s not sure how long they stay there, but it’s long after her tears have managed to dry up.

            “I need to talk to Preston. We have to find a plan to get rid of the Institute,” she says, her voice thick.

            “You’re willing to do that, doll?” he asks, the worry sharp on his face.

            “Before the Great War, I spent my whole life fighting against injustices like that. As far as I’m concerned, that man isn’t my son. The only thing left to do is to figure out how to help the people of the Commonwealth. The Institute is the biggest threat. We need to go from there,” Nora says, taking a deep breath. She swings her legs off of Hancock’s lap and stands up, marching determinedly over to the sink. She splashes water on her face- it was only recently that Sturges had managed to get it running again. She pauses for a moment, her fingers gripping the edge of the counter. Hancock comes up behind her, his hands resting lightly on her waist.

            “I’m with you. Whatever it takes,” he assures her, and she lets out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

* * *

            There had been a flurry of activity in the weeks leading up to the assault on the Institute. The answer was, unsurprisingly, a bomb. Sturges had found an entrance, and they only needed to get everyone ready. Nora was the one who went creeping along through the old tunnels, Hancock by her side. She didn’t start to relax until she’d keyed in the code that brought the other Minutemen inside, Sturges rushing over to the console immediately. That’s where he’d been when she and Hancock had headed deeper into the Institute, towards the reactor with the bomb sitting heavy in her bag, and that’s where he was when they returned, her heart pounding with adrenaline.

            She is heading towards the teleporter when a voice, impossibly small, stops her. “Mom!” the boy cries out, reaching for her. He has her eyes and her hair and Nate’s nose and chin, and Nora’s heart aches. Sturges meets her gaze and nods, once. She looks back down at the boy, the synth-child that perfectly mirrors the boy her son should have grown up to be. She opens her arms and he crashes into her as she lifts him up, turning and jogging back towards the teleporter. She tucks herself around them as it activates, the blue-white light making her dizzy enough to squeeze her eyes shut, and then she’s standing on the roof of a building in the bright Commonwealth son, Hancock by her side and her son in her arms.

            “I was afraid you were going to leave me,” the boy whimpers, and Nora presses a kiss to the top of his head.

            “I’d never leave my boy,” she says, and she tries to sound calmer than she feels. Hancock’s arm wraps around her waist and she leans against him.

            “What do you say we head back home, when all this is done?” Hancock asks, his voice a whisper in her ear.

            “All of us?” Nora asks, looking back down at the boy. It’s hard to think of him as her son- hard to think that after everything, she might still be a mother after all.

            “Yeah, all of us. We’ll be a nice little family,” Hancock says, pressing a kiss to Nora’s cheek. She smiles to herself, holding Shaun against her as Preston presses the button.

* * *

            It had taken time to settle into life in Sanctuary Hills. Although Sturges had managed to do a lot, there was always something else they needed. Luckily, though, Nora was good at tinkering. Shaun had settled into life there like he was her real son, and as far as Nora was concerned, he was. Hancock had stayed, too, except for the times when he’d head back to Goodneighbor. Life had managed to fall into some semblance of normal- Nora took to running a shop in the market that had sprung up where a house had once stood, and Codsworth was doing his best to teach Shaun some of the things he might have learned before the war.

            It was a sunny Saturday afternoon that Nora sat outside in the grass. Hancock was sitting on the table just above her, his legs dangling. She’s got a toaster in her lap, her tongue between her teeth as she works at popping the casing off. The umbrella, old and patchy, does a passable job at shading them. Shaun is rolling in the grass a few feet away with Dogmeat. Occasionally, Nora will look up at her son, as if to make sure that he’s there. Hancock looks down at her, a fond smile on his face as she works. “You know, I was thinking,” Hancock says. Nora pauses, the screwdriver stilling in her head.

            “Yeah?” she asks. In front of them, Dogmeat barks as he chases Shaun.

            “We should go ahead and get hitched,” he says, leaning back a little. Nora looks up at him, her eyes bright.

            “Really? I never took you for the type to settle down, Mayor,” she teases. Shaun laughs in the background as Dogmeat pins him down. Hancock slides off the table and sits down next to her, a hand coming up to cup her cheek.

            “I’d always make an exception for you, doll,” he says, and Nora leans forward to press a kiss against the rough skin of his lips.

            “For the record, I heard they got the old movie projector at Starlight Drive-In working again. Maybe we could get Sturges to watch Shaun and head down there. It’d be a date, a real one, and maybe you could ask me properly,” Nora tells him, a faint grin on her face.

            Hancock looks down at the sun reflecting off of the dented silver of the toaster in her lap and takes one of her hands in his. “I think I could arrange something,” he says, and Nora smiles as she rests her head on his shoulder. He slides an arm around her waist, kissing her temple.

            When Nora woke up in the Vault, she’d never expected things to go this way. Sitting there in the sun, though, with Hancock’s hand in hers and Shaun playing nearby, she wonders how she ever thought it could have ended any other way. 

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/150957467@N08/34828014915/in/dateposted-public/)

**Author's Note:**

> art by @fastforwardmotion on tumblr


End file.
